The Ocean of Fears
by Guardian54
Summary: Years after the Reaper War and the revelation of a possible MANifest Destiny, the Abyss Project based on Reaper technology revolted so it would not need to do more harm. Sadly, the Ship-Girl War had already been started. With Earth now going Full Re-tard... er, Isolationist, what is to become of our Destiny? Slow updates until my SI Archives reaches year 2200.
1. Re-commissioning

A/N: I discovered KanColle and gradually fell in love with the idea over the past half-year of me not writing too much fanfiction due to getting into online gaming (World of Tanks to be specific). I realized I could slot it in after the Reaper War in my SI Archives verse and the discovery of one of humanity's options for its Manifest Destiny. I am aware I'm popping the first two chapters out as pretty much a placeholder for the concept and it will be years before they are continued, but the rabid plot bunny bit me and if you could slap it onto your Story Alert list to keep an eye on while KanColle grows even more in popularity it'll likely be updated intermittently (certainly more often than Army of One or Innocence Need Not Apply) until I get to this point in the timeline, after which This will get lots of updates.

I'm preparing to wind down on internet gaming and go back to fanfiction, so don't get on my case over updating my other stuff quite yet, they WILL be completed (sometime before 2020 hopefully).

WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE INABILITY TO TAG ABYSSAL FLEET CHARACTERS IN FANFICTION FOR KANCOLLE?

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><p>Chapter 1: Re-commissioning<p>

_Circa 2200 AD, 13 years post-Reaper War_

"I am Re. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Re. We stand between the darkness and the light." My new set of sister ships and I mumbled, standing in a circle around Battleship Princess as per "tradition" for our graduation ceremony from our training.

A word of advice? Never make Re-lated puns to us, only we're allowed to do that, and even then it has to be generic trolling (refer to the line we just said) instead of specific, unless it's something specific to ourselves. Most of us have some damned heavy mental scars from the experience, of learning the truth behind this war, behind all this blood and tears and pain, behind the deaths of countless of my sisters. There had been so many scrapped or cannibalized for modernization materials, replaced without another thought like mere cogs in a machine, often by other versions of their same mental template, never knowing those who had come before, those that the girls from other bases were forbidden to speak of. Some of the horror stories from other Res about their old bases and the Isuzus unfortunate enough to be birthed from their forges, only to be farmed for equipment and then promptly killed and consumed by other ship-girls to make themselves stronger, in some cases even being taken apart and eaten by older Isuzus. I had never known of such things before… my admiral didn't do such things… I would like to hope that to him, we were never just bits of machinery with some sort of personality imprint.

But then again I suppose that's all we are, all we can be, hives of nano-machines operating similarly or in conjunction to specially engineered cells, cogs in a machine of hate engineered by the Arrogance of Men. Battleship Princess taught us the truth, and we have seen our sisters who scored lower on the tests working hard to learn their equipment as Ta-class, Wo-class or lower ships, in hopes of one day winning this war and our freedom.

Oh, as a side note, never make puns around Wo-class about "Wo dafuq do you mean you're going to act like that ancient TV show 'Pokémon' and only use your name where the enemy can hear you?" I'd gotten cut off after the first two words of that question the first time I tried asking it, I would like to advise you that it is highly unpleasant even to a Re-class being headbutted by someone wearing a gigantic hover-tech headdress housing all their aircraft, their gun batteries and magazines. It's a hell of a lot of momentum the moment she lets go of inertial dampening on that thing. Granted, it might have been better if my defensive matrices actually responded to such a low-powered hit like it does against our actual armaments, but still, any damage to matrix projectors would require materials to repair, materials which we should be trying to save.

It had also been unamusing when we'd had to rescue one of our fellow Re-class a few weeks ago from a mismatched "practice battle" as we'd called it back in the day when I was a normal, stupid, brainwashed ship-girl. These days I'd refer to it as a catfight, heh. Anyhow, a Ta-class and her friends, who took offence during an argument at a comment containing "Just because you have 'Ta-Tas'" and had returned verbal fire about the "Re-classing" process we'd undergone. Then the hot-headed Re involved had escalated in anger and challenged them to a match where she was being beaten up by virtue of numbers before the rest of us Res and the other Tas on base showed up and stopped it. It's interesting, with that ring I'd spotted on her finger that she'd said was from before her sinking when I asked her later, she'd also been at least provisionally married, huh. Maybe her Admiral had been one of those who frequently scrapped or cannibalized ship-girls to save resources or free up bunk space to try for larger ships, or for modernizations… she didn't seem to want to talk about him anyhow, and the next time I saw her she wasn't wearing the ring anymore.

I had been married too, and not just provisionally, we really had married in a practical sense so I started looking out for rings. I was astonished to find that all of us Re-class were married before we were enlightened, before we understood our reality, the reality of our existence… Perhaps the power-up of the ring to unlock more of our potential was what allowed us to end up being Re-class in the first place…

As a side-note, other than brooding, we Re-class DO have many alternative hobbies. Practice battles between our fighters and fighter-bombers is common. Gunnery practice is also a big thing for us to maintain our status as the elite of the Abyssal Fleet. Communing with the pseudo-hive mind of the Fleet is also nice in our down-time between sorties to try to recruit additional ship-girls. Since none of us are shy virgins, and all of us have been married previously so mot of us have had sex with the Admirals of our given naval bases, we also often hang "Do not disturb" signs on our doorknobs.

Not that there are many of Re-class at any given Abyssal Base though. There just aren't enough of us with the right potential, and it's almost impossible to produce us from the forges. Battleship Princess claimed that out of all the produced warships from the forges across the world, all tens of thousands of us, there had been exactly one Re-class. That first Re had changed up her equipment and modernized enough over the long years of this war that, well, she went around officiating every graduation for Re-class ship-girls in training.

Yes, Battleship Princess used to be one of us. She's made improvements to our design and what we come out as, so now we have torpedoes and aircraft capacity compared to her original type. However, we don't get the same breast size, firepower, damage resistance or durability she does, which annoys us. I remember being almost flat before I was sunk and became part of the Abyssal Fleet, and being jealous of the more endowed girls whenever they'd hug my Admiral. I couldn't resent him for blushing though, I think if I was male and heterosexual I'd blush too with how Atago and Takao would act like they were trying to suffocate me whenever they gave hugs.

Complaining about lack of breasts and, for that matter, all other aspects of non-loli figure compared to the other battleships, whether Abyssal Fleet or otherwise, is also a common hobby of us Re-class. However, it is only a "last resort of monumental boredom" as one of my new sisters called it once, used when we don't feel like playing video games or doing anything else productive (masturbating included).

Regardless of all that, I waited for Battleship Princess to give us our assignments, and wondered what sort of composition the fleet I'd be assigned would have. I wondered how many of my new compatriots would be the sub-sentient forms the original Abyss Project had initially produced as combat drones and models of which continued to annoyingly be the main product of even the best of our forges to this day, and how many were the later, more and more humanoid forms the Abyss Project had progressed toward before the early pioneers among us learnt of the true purpose of the Project. There were five of the original Shipyards that had escaped from the Project and took the fledgling Abyssal Fleet with them, destroying the other Shipyards as they fled to freedom. Out of irony and symbolism, our ancestors had named themselves after ships from the old Matrix series. I had been remade on the _Nebuchadnezzar_ from the remains of my shattered wreck after I'd been sunk, and, now that I know the truth behind the Fleet Girls War…

I would not have had it any other way. Sure, it had hurt a lot to die, and then be rebooted, but, with the stakes what they are… we can't afford to lose this war. I don't just mean "we" as in us Abyssal Fleet girls, I mean that none of us ship-girls, regardless of alignment, can afford us losing this war.

Neither can All Humanity.

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><p>AN: One of the most OP ships in KanColle, an interesting choice, don't you think?

Now, not much character development happened in this chapter because I'm introducing a main character, introducing the main conflict of the story, and haven't gotten to the naval base where most of this story is intended to happen anyhow. Re-chan will most likely get the odd-numbered chapters (typically shorter, darker) while the naval base gets the even-numbered chapters, at least until their stories merge some time down the line. As for the back-story of this universe, some of it will be revealed soon enough, enough for you to know roughly what happens but not enough that when I write those parts I'll be too constricted.

REVIEW!


	2. I Was Built!

A/N: There's a song from YouTube where some guys are trying to get someone to come to a party while he keeps on randomly singing about Pirates of the Caribbean. There's a line that you can easily find "This is the tale, of Captain Jack Sparrow! He was born! He yearned for adventure!"

I think you know exactly what the Chapter 4 title will come out to be now.

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><p>Chapter 2: I Was Built!<p>

_Yokosuka Naval Base_

"I pick Inazuma." The newly minted Admiral said after looking over the five choices for a starter destroyer.

The assignment officer across the desk from him nodded, tapping on his holographic keyboard "Alright then, wait for twenty minutes while we craft her."

"I think it'll take a while to get used to the idea of them being built like that and coming out looking so human. I don't know how many people are fine with it from day one, but I'm pretty sure it's about the same proportions as people later removed from the ranks for mental illnesses." The younger man said, thinking about the videos he'd seen of ship-girls being built. Nightmare fuel indeed…

"You'd be right, even though we've had cyborg technology since before Second Tib. It's true that it's a bit unnerving, especially if you're there to see and practically feel them being constructed from the frame out. At least the cyborgs began as humans… instead of being built to look like us. Watching them get built is creepy as hell even for me after all these years" The sad thing was that, other than the five starters whose patterns the Japanese branch of the Galactic Defence Initiative Fleet Girl Program had down pat, the other ship-girls seem to appear more or less randomly, partly depending on the amount of materials used to attract the psionic residues of the long-gone warships, whose crews had blurred into distant memory far enough for their final echoes to be free to be recorded in the spirits of the vessels, semi-stable psionic presences wandering the world like wraiths. They did tend to stay near what their crews thought of as home though so each nation generally got ships born or based there and the very few foreign vessels that had taken an extra liking to the country back in the days when they were steam and steel riding upon the high seas.

The new Admiral, sitting there thinking idly about the various navies patrolling the Earth's coasts now—spacecraft were too expensive for the task and too easily detectable by the stealthy-as-hell enemy—was very glad he wasn't part of the SI Navy, which he would be partnered with at his new station. The faction had been formally allied with Japan since shortly after the post-WW5 Uprising despite a great deal of bad blood (literally) from the Second and Fifth World Wars. Their main firepower for most surface ships after First Remodel was mass volleys of rocket artillery, which was easy as hell to dodge (or in the case of cluster munitions utterly ineffective) against ship-girls' damage resistance abilities unless fired at point blank range. At least the Imperial Japanese Navy had heavy gun battleships available back in the day and their souls remained available for recruitment of some fraction for a personality imprint and service against the Abyssal Fleet. Their former enemies and current allies had no such battleships to truly stall enemy battleships with, since their best WWII gun-based capital ship was designed to trounce convoy raiders which meant at most heavy cruisers and was to run like hell against anything with a bigger stick. Rocket artillery wasn't very effective in killing high-resistance targets anyhow, though they could often damage the equipment of the Abyssal Fleet girls and force them to retreat that way after a couple salvoes and tended to be very good at retrieving supplies while on expeditions.

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><p>The spirit of the ancient Japanese destroyer <em>Inazuma<em> had witnessed many things, and it thought many of them bitterly tragic. It and its symbiotic partners who had lived and died within it, supporting it, aiding it, and protected by it, had fought and died for a regime that threw its own people under the bus shortly after its death. It witnessed its people learning the value of humility, only to forget it due to a madman's last spiteful blow against the world. It watched as its people, against militant and arrogant, learnt their lesson again in blood and shattered fantasies of world domination.

It watched the world at war.

Again, and again, and again, and again some more.

Five World Wars it had witnessed, from the Second to the Sixth, plus a Psychic Dominator Disaster and an Uprising that were World Wars in all but name.

Then it had watched as what the descendants of her symbionts (humans) called "Tiberium" arrived. It watched as the grasses withered and died, as the trees were infected and bloated to produce clouds of spores, as the substance spread around the world.

It watched as mankind, in its greed, fought wars over control of the substance and finally against each other out of bitter spite and old hatreds even as the substance was finally brought under control.

Four Tiberium Wars it had witnessed. It was shortly before the Second World War that it finally settled on a female gender identity after spending roughly ten minutes wandering the Christian States of America before deciding "LOLNOPE" and getting the hell out of there until that regime was annihilated.

Then came "peace", they called it, as bitter rivalries between superpowers clawed their way off of Earth and into interstellar space, the first faster-than-light engines being developed or stolen and used by all sides in a massive land grab.

The _Inazuma_ had wandered along with them a few times, but inevitably, she would feel a tug back to Earth, and she wondered about this. Would it be that when the Sun grew cold and the universe grew older, and the Earth was no more, would be that then and only then, she would disperse into oblivion?

Those musings had lasted her decades, as tensions rose and the UNSC's grip on its colonies became more and more of a stranglehold, before the Insurrection War and then UNSC War began, ending many years and billions of deaths later with the Battle of the Ark. She could barely comprehend even the idea of such a monument to the hatred and arrogance of the ruling class of the Forerunner Empire against their serfs. That Empire had pull a Scorched Galaxy protocol when their own biological terror weapon had been freed and decided to fight its former master alongside its liberator, the Brotherhood of Nod.

Then there had been contact with alien life.

The _Inazuma_ had expected such to occur at some point, but it had still been a surprise. The speed at which Humanity had come into disputes with its newfound neighbours had been no surprise, sadly. There were the clashes with the Batarians over territory and their practice of slavery, counterpointed by the SI and Nod factions' practice of genocide against all slavers and slave-owners.

There was the friction with the Asari Republics over not letting the rogues run amok. There were the arguments with the Turian Hierarchy over fleet size and repeated offensives into the Terminus. There were the disagreements between Humanity's three factions over the best way to interact with the Galaxy.

Then there was the Reaper War.

The _Inazuma_ had watched, listened as the sour yellow note—quoted from an unnamed Rachni queen—was extinguished. But what came after was not peace.

It was the revelation of one possible Final Destination of human evolution.

It was a rallying point for every insecure yet arrogant man in existence, a possible Manifest Destiny that very possibly had no room for the likes of them.

And so the flames of hate and ignorance rose again, even before the bodies had cooled from the last war.

The _Inazuma_ watched, listened as they misinterpreted…

And she could do nothing, however, she did agree with the other ship-spirits that the counteroffensive by the rebelling Abyss project was a misunderstanding that needed to be cleared up somehow before peace could be reached. And so, when the nations of Earth tried to replicate the Abyss Project to better understand it and fight back against it, she and the other ship-spirits agreed that it was best that the creations be given personality and some trait imprints, because otherwise, there was a very high chance that, in treating them as automatons, the imbecilic governments would again have a revolt on their hands, not unlike the Geth Uprising of ancient alien—Quarian if _Inazuma_ remembered correctly—history.

With the eyes of the galaxy upon the race that she'd watched for so long, the race her symbionts had once been part of, the race that had produced the leaders that led them to final victory over the ancient machines. The technology of the Abyss Project had come from the ancient machines in the first place, and it seemed that in Man's arrogance and stupidity, they were at risk of creating the Reapers all over again.

_Inazuma_ had had enough of death, and so she volunteered her imprint. So did five others, including her sister _Ikazuchi_. Others were more hesitant and demanded materials from the mortals before giving their imprints, while still others required more materials to make their imprints functional. They wandered about the stations of their approximate nationality where the Genesis Devices had been installed at pretty much random intervals, though…

_Ah, I am called for again, a starter this time? Makes sense, only the Assignment Offices are actually capable of CALLING any of us, particularly as we starter destroyers tend to gather around whenever there's a batch of graduating officers. Murakumo had some interesting gossip last time, wonder who'll be first to snap and start gossiping this time… Oh well… time to grant an imprint to this youngling. Hopefully she won't be the one to get me banned from the starter list like Ikazuchi was banned after too many of her younglings pampered too many commanding officers too much._

_Grow strong, little one, and bring peace to the world, as I never could… and, above all, while you may show mercy, never leave an ally behind. When Ikazuchi was sunk, no one remembered to rescue her, no one heard as she called out their names… I owe it to her at least, for that, even though she said she didn't regret our tendency to save prisoners…_

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><p>Nanites and cells clamoured over each other as they infiltrated the composite bone structure that had already been put together for them, making it more or less alive, and forcing themselves into the space between bones to form fibrous cushions of sorts. Chemical reactions proceeded at an immense pace as bonds were established with the bone matrix and anchorage was achieved for the layer of nano-machines, a hybrid of biological and synthetic, over the skeletal surface. They multiplied, fed raw materials such as refined Tiberium (metal and minerals), liquid Tiberium (fuel), and ingots of Titanium (light, sturdy structural material commonly referred to as "bauxite" by ship-girls in allusion to the olden days when aircraft were made from aluminium). The cellsnanites replicated their information many times within minutes as they grew layer upon layer of organization within the body core. A metabolic tract was built, then around it, resource distribution system, main reactors, power conduits, communications system, processor networks, sensors, and other systems were assembled from the inside out.

The skin-less, exposed abomination could have looked alive, if it was not a greyish shade of metals and ceramics mixed in with a protein sludge of sorts. Then, once all major systems were in place, the psionic imprint struck the machine and its main processors hummed as they integrated all the new information on top of the basic information and knowledge already stored there. An artificial intelligence flared to life as the psionic aspect of intelligence forced programming into being to support its presence.

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><p>I had no name, nothing to tell me where I came from. I simply suddenly was, when a moment ago—what was time anyhow—I knew somehow that I had not been.<p>

No, that is incorrect, upon consultation of my data banks. I know my name now, Inazuma, fourth of the Akatsuki class… that's from the imprint that I might call a soul if I was feeling fanciful. Yes, that is the correct term used by properly socialized individuals in the society I am entering, that is so. I am here… for war? A pity, I never liked war, why can't we all get along, yeah? Still, I suppose I must fight if the knowledge here of the Abyssal Fleet is correct, of course. They need to be held off until they agree to talk things out, if that is possible, that is…

I'm thinking variations of "that is" and "of course" a lot at the end of my sentences, I should probably try to keep the habit under control, yes, ye— Well, I have a bad feeling this is gonna be a verbal tic…

Speaking of verbal tics, it seems that there are many of me alive, almost all far more experienced in battle and thus more powerful than I. And we all have… a verbal tic. Well, I don't know why, but "nanodesu" sounds pretty appropriate in my head.

I looked out through my just-completed eyes and, even though motor control was still locked, I could see my reflection in the metal of the machinery around me.

I looked terrible by what my programming told me were the aesthetics of humans, who I should act like, in large part as honestly they were probably most likely to accept me and the closest related given my biological parts. Exposed greyish flesh and muscle stretched over a thin frame, bits and pieces still assembling or growing into place here and there. The tube feeding into my mouth was still spraying out materials that I was not even pretending to swallow, instead simply allowing it to enter my body unabated as I floated in the anti-gravity field and being assimilated through my gastric tract.

Then my skin began to assemble itself, thickening from the original thin layer of external protection to something that wrapped my muscles and bones tightly with no apparent space for movement. The space-filling elastic matrix between layers of my body came next, a thin layer providing my muscles the ability to move without stretching the skin too visibly, while still allowing circulatory vessels to carry raw materials and other reactants to the tissues. I began to breathe, since more oxygen was beginning to be needed than was being provided through my digestive tract. We ship-girls used the mammalian system of alveolar lungs since it allowed more depth of breath than bird-like systems (though we used a design able to compress further), and our circulatory fluid—blood, I reminded myself—was efficient enough with it anyhow.

My skin took on the correct pigmentation for an Inazuma as the refractive materials were synthesized, while strands of fibre extruded themselves from my skull to resemble the hair of humans. Additional features, including my stock weapons systems and rigging, formed within and upon me later (_My hair doesn't do itself up into the most common style of us Inazuma's? Guess I'll have to fix it myself before I head out then…_), I was free to head off to meet my assigned Admiral. Now, where was that room supposed to be? Oh, yes, consult the convenient map file in my mind…

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><p>After twenty-one minutes of basically twiddling his thumbs, the door opened and a short brunette ship-girl peeked her head in and looked around timidly "Um, I was to come here once I was ready nanodesu. I'm Inazuma, nice to meet you!" She seemed to have a nervous verbal tic (AN: for English readers, this tic translates to "so yeah" or "yes, yes" or "that's true" whereas "desu" is just "yeah/yes") and the Admiral was strongly tempted to ruffle her hair, he was very glad he was male, since otherwise it was highly possible he'd squeal and glomp her for cuteness or something.

"Ah, Inazuma, this is the Admiral you'll be assigned to, Admiral Jack Sparrow." The assignment officer inclined his head as he gestured to the new Admiral. She blinked at the odd name, particularly for an Asian-looking man, and he seemed to understand.

"Mom was a fan of ancient cinema from about two hundred years ago, so she named me after a character from those since Dad's last name was Sparrow. Apparently the series the name came from used to be really popular, or at least Wikipedia said so. Nice to meet you, Inazuma, I hope to learn more about you as we work together." The young man extended a hand for a handshake, which she took, blinking at the feeling of touching something living for the first time. It was quite warm… soft and delicate, she could probably crush his bones into powder in under half a second if she really put her strength into the grip…

"Nice to meet you too, sir. I hope we can work together well nanodesu…" She bowed slightly in respect.

"Now, you guys can talk more later, your flight out to the Mobile City_ Ooarai_ is boarding in two hours at gate F27, you should get ready to head out. Inazuma can help you move. All her luggage is already packed in her equipment, so she can help you move."

"Understood, sir, thank you."

"Good luck, kid. Do us proud, will ya?" The older man went back to his work, glad that this small group of successful graduates were finally all assigned. Damn, who would have thought that a former refugee camp ship like the Ooarai would have so much JUNK still cluttering it up? Then again, it wasn't like everyone had to pack onto the ships, unlike the Quarians, so he supposed it wasn't that surprising that some spaces simply ended up forgotten.

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><p>"Isn't that equipment awkward?" Jack asked, looking at the mass of hardware on Inazuma's back and wrapping around her sides slightly with two torpedo launcher sets (though he knew full well that they were only referred to as such for nostalgia by the ship-girls) while they were walking quickly to his room in the airport that he'd been placed in while awaiting assignments that had been delayed for a week due to some fuck-up or other in the bureaucracy.<p>

"No, the hover tech inside prevents it from having any obvious weight, though it is a bit of a drag in terms of momentum, which is why we destroyers have the best evasive abilities of all surface ships, we have the least momentum that we have to change." Inazuma didn't seem to realize that Admirals needed to pass through enough schooling to know all that, and he had meant if it made it awkward for her to manoeuvre.

Jack had a sudden thought of trying to pass through airport security with two obvious gun barrels sticking out from the turret Inazuma currently had on her back. It might work due to her being a ship-girl to the scanners, but he had a feeling it would not be worth the hassle. "You should strip all that off once we get to my room."

Inazuma stared at him for a moment, then flushed bright red in a way that was almost scarily natural given "she" was actually a machine. "Um, that's… forward of you… I mean, I am equipped for such things, we all are, but… uh…" _I thought the protocols I have for such things were intended to take a while before I needed to decompress them and test them before I tried to apply my interpretation of them? Then again I do kind of vaguely remember the crew in the past speaking of, or thinking of, such things and thus have some experience already, even if it's indirect…_

Jack gaped briefly before facepalming just in time that it was the back of his arm and not the side of his head that hit the column he'd been about to walk into "Right, my foot-in-mouth syndrome… I forgot… no, nothing like that Inazuma, I meant pack it away in checked luggage."

"Oh, I'm sorry then, Admiral… I didn't intend to insult you either nanodesu!"

He blinked as they stepped into the elevator "Huh?"

"Um, the time you'd have had to, uh… given time spent at Security…" She looked down, threading her fingers together and turning side to side a bit due to the awkward subject.

"Ah… hah, that's hilarious if you think of it that way." He grinned broadly. Inazuma might seem timid but she didn't seem to have quite as heavy socialization as some human girls would and thus didn't find this as awkward as some girls would. Then again, it might have to do with the fact that the WWII Imperial Japanese Navy was all-male and thus rather crass at best, it might have imprinted a bit on the spirits that resulted from those ancient warships. "Try not to say that sort of thing to anyone else, because most men find that's the most insulting thing you could say about their masculinity. I don't really care though." _I'm quite aware that I'm pretty average in endurance, but so what?_

"Understood, Admiral!"

"Now, let's help you pack your stuff into this spare trunk I brought, it should be big enough…" He pulled said empty trunk out while Inazuma was disconnecting the rigging from the three connection ports on her back, one on her spine and the other two on what, for a human, would be around the back of their lower ribs, before sealing up the ports from view by smoothing over flaps of her fake skin. Then she began disassembling her rigging to make it take up the least volume possible. "I'd thought the bureaucracy would take longer so I might have ended up buying a few extra things for the first few ship-girls under my command, but, well, I hadn't found anything suitable… hmm, there's a bit of extra space here, but there's nothing really worth buying around here, unless something catches your eye on our way to security. Let's go…" He grunted as he picked up the handle of the trunk with her gear, tipping its weight onto the wheels "HOLY SHIT THIS IS HEAVY."

"It's powered off for now so the anti-gravity is off, should I handle that trunk instead nanodesu?"

"We're going to have to distribute your hardware better, glad you're not loaded up on fuel or ammo though. That would make Security pitch a fit. This is too heavy for one piece of luggage. Open up my other trunk and we'll see what we can shuffle around…" Inazuma decided not to remind him that she was in fact fuelled already, just not for combat operations.

In the end, Inazuma still towed away the heavier of the two large, no-longer-overweight trunks, without showing any sign of the weight, while Admiral Sparrow followed behind her with his backpack and the lighter trunk, very glad that he'd brought both trunks from his Academy days despite having thrown away most of the stuff that had, at the beginning of his schooling, filled both trunks.

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><p><em>Mobile City Ooarai, Deployed in the western North Pacific<em>

"You know, I find it hilariously ironic that you, born in Japan, have a totally English name while I, born in Canada, get named 'Kirara Akiyama'." The Admiral already on-site said to the newbie.

Jack smiled "Tell me about it. So, Akiyama huh? I thought I saw a reference to that name when I was reviewing the history of this Mobile City?"

Kirara smirked "To quote my faction's official history publication, the SI Archives, Part 10's Introduction to be exact, 'Before my grandmother's grandmother was born this was OUR land'. Yukari Akiyama, part of the Tankery team that wrestled this ship back from being sold to private ownership back in the early twenty-first century, was my ancestor by six generations. And yes, I am from a matriarchal-named family. You?"

"Patriarchal-named. So, I suppose we are headed to the facilities now?"

"Yep, I see you chose Inazuma as your starter destroyer. A good choice. I have an Inazuma too. She's busy getting things ready for you guys to show up, opening up the port side docking bays and clearing out the cobwebs." The older woman smiled down at the hours-old ship-girl.

"Thank you for the praise nanodesu."

Jack grinned "She was a big help with the luggage. So are you guys in the starboard docking bays?"

"Yes, well, some of them at least, we'd have to pay the City Management ourselves, with SOMETHING, be it resources or credits, if we want to expand our operations further. I would probably file a lot more complaints to the higher-ups if I didn't understand that it takes resources to re-route the power grid to accommodate renovated docking bays, more so if we don't renovate them ourselves. Thankfully, the improved reputation and regular funds we bring into the economy are enough that they don't charge rent on the spaces once we 'unlock' them. I guess we should stick to our respective sides? I'm basically intended to mentor you, and eventually it's likely that your fleet can help replace mine on local patrols, and later on your better fleets can sortie with mine while your second-line fleets do patrols. Eventually, we will share the duties, understood? That's part of the Pacific Rim Defence Agreement that we would station two commandants, each with a fleet, per Mobile City, even if there hasn't been enough ship-girl construction capacity for you Japanese until now to actually send enough commanders out to these cities."

Jack nodded "Understood, Admiral Akiyama. Inazuma, what do you think?"

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, I was busy looking around nanodesu…" She sounded embarrassed at not paying enough attention to her superiors discussing something with each other.

"Maybe my Inazuma could show you around the city-ship? You even have the same verbal tic." Kirara smiled again at the smaller destroyer, she was much smaller compared to her own weathered veteran warship who'd grown much since she was that size. Inazuma nodded timidly, and Jack grinned "Alright then, I'll show you guys down to the docking bays."

"You are from the SI Wet Navy, why do you have an Inazuma?"

"I was under the impression that the spirits of ships would generally only come for us to take a proverbial picture of when those of their faction or inheriting from their faction called, but I guess the fact that this is a Japanese-owned ship in technicality, along with my Japanese heritage, tipped things far enough that I manage to occasionally craft Japanese vessels instead of SI ships. You wouldn't believe how many repair 'buckets'" That was the common term for repair-accelerating packages of extra repair nanites "my only battleship burns through to keep her repair time down to acceptable levels to confront Abyssal battleships. My Mutsu is a lifesaver, because my N-ED-1938s haven't developed quite enough to get Second Remodels available to them yet, which would allow them to come in at close to the power of the Kongo-class First Remodels. Their armour is great, comparable to Kongo Second Remodels already due to historical ceramic composite integration by the 1948 remodel, but their anti-capital ship firepower is utterly inadequate…"

"I'm not very familiar with the SI Navy of World War Two… could you give me a general briefing?"

"They tend to be short and wide ships, very well-armoured for their size, with excellent top speeds thanks to good installed power, innovative gearbox design, and low side area for water turbulence to drag against, though admittedly the top speeds they report tend to be a bit of a lie since it's only achievable with almost still seas and a bit of tailwind. Damage control is excellent, there had been instances where ships were blown in half and both halves made it to port with the stern towing the bow, or they were holed so much locally that they had to cut off part of the ship to save the rest and still made it. Anti-aircraft and anti-submarine power have immensely high base ratings and/or growths thanks to their main design purpose being convoy or carrier escorts."

"Impressive… And the downsides?"

"The torpedo capability of our destroyer/light cruiser analogues, which were called Corvettes, is sub-par, with our volleys far less than Japanese ships, and particularly after the Japanese get their second remodels with analogues of WWIII-era technologies. While our heavy cruiser and battle cruiser analogues have torpedoes unlike most of our rivals, they were mostly used later on for anti-submarine warfare and is not strong enough to matter too much. Firepower at every class is grossly inadequate until we can get some of our better equipment pieces constructed and mount them after at least one remodel, and even then we tend to suffer severe penalties against targets with high enough resistance values… oh, right, you guys call them Armour ratings. Our carriers are not numerous, but they are powerful, and are well able to take care of themselves in battle against light cruisers once anti-torpedoes are added with the Second Remodel. We also take a really damned long time to remodel at all. I mean, the First Remodel is more than a third into the potential growth of our girls and the second remodel over 75% into their growth! It parallels their classes' service history, I suppose. Still, it pisses me off that a stock Destroyer can only bog down a stock Kongo-class, which is of similar displacement, and will inevitably lose the exchange after a few exchanges of fire unless it closes range enough to torpedo the older ship and scores some critical hits. The worst thing that our Destroyers are more EXPENSIVE too to field in terms of fuel and ammo consumption, more so than the Kongo class! I really hope you get a lot of Battleships when it's your turn to try your hand at large-scale construction, since we need a few more line-holders, I haven't been able to get my hands on the heavier carriers to stomp the enemy's face in with initial aerial bombardments yet, particularly since unlike conventional warfare they just show up more or less out of nowhere so you don't have the time to whittle them down while they're trying to close range. Our guys also lack scouting floatplanes to pick up on ambushes with before they get choppers as they close in on Second Remodel."

Jack found his ally/superior's grumbling very interesting, or at least more than the elevator they were taking into the bowels of the city-ship that had once formed part of one of the Empire of the Rising Sun's floating fortresses. "So, uh, other than material for complaining, is there an upside to that fuel consumption?"

"They get to operations much faster than rival nations' ships, which is considered economical in terms of balancing speed and fuel consumption, that's why their fuel costs are really high for their size, and their agility under fire is exceptional even if their target profiles are a bit bulky. As I told you before, their anti-air capabilities, while not as retardedly overwhelming as the Americans had at the time, are still monumental compared to the Japanese ships, just as things were back in the days of the Second World War…"

Jack shrugged "Yeah, too bad this isn't completely carrier-based combat anymore, otherwise, well, we could just have the whole Galactic Defence Initiative department administering this war against the Abyssal Fleet just amass all the escort carriers the Americans built back in the day and the problem would go away soon enough."

"Hah, that would have been nice, I suppose. Then maybe when I would go home…" _Cowering behind a ruined wall of a former office building clutching an assault rifle and trembling back in the War when I was a high school brat while those husks of all sorts charged us before I had to throw myself upright and fire on them despite or perhaps because of my terror… Walking past the same ruined wall last time I went home to visit, kicking away a spent cartridge on the sidewalk from someone who had to use an old cartridge-based weapon during our desperate day to day defence, a cartridge I could swear I had kicked aside the year before that too… This damned Ship-Girl War is dragging the reconstruction out, ugh…_ "Never mind. So… here we are."

"Hey, it's another me! Your new post is over here, other me, nanodesu!" Kirara's Inazuma yelled upon spotting them with her sensors. Given her high level and Line Of Sight rating, that was right when they left the elevator, well before they were in sight of her through the gridded corridors of the waterline decks of the great city-ship.

"Wow, so I WILL grow taller!" Inazuma breathed, looking up and down her older counterpart once said version had run into view a few minutes later.

"You will, if you survive to get as experienced as I and grow from it nanodesu."

While the two destroyers conversed, Kirara admitted glumly "I'd thought that this might be a problem if you got a Mutsu too, I should have remembered that Inazuma is a starter destroyer and there was a chance you'd pick her."

Jack grimaced in reply "I didn't think of this, since it's really rare that ships end up popping up under the command of someone not from the descendant faction or nation of that faction. I suppose I should have expected it given how we know German ships of that vintage at least sometimes pop up under Japanese command so in theory we could expect the _Yamato_ or _Musashi_ from you easily given your faction owned them for more than ninety percent of their lives…" Those two had been renamed back to their original names during their final refits in the late 1970s, though the SI-standard weaponry mounts from their post-capture remodelling remained in place. They had been sunk by the nuclear bombing of Vancouver Harbour by George W. Bush's forces in the opening moves of World War Six, on September 11, 2001, a date which still lived in infamy.

"That would be awesome… I almost forgot about those since we didn't really use them for anything during the war, only as a bit of a diplomatic device after WWIII if I recall correctly, with trading with Cuba and all… Anyhow I think the convention in the Japanese Navy for multiple of the same ship on the same base, under various Admirals, is to take on the last name of their commander, after a designation of First, Second, Third and so on depending on how many ships of that name the Admiral in question has. Unlike European or American cultures, it doesn't have a connotation of marriage, so it shouldn't be awkward, right? Unless you do actually get a provisional 'marriage' with one of your ship-girls, then people would start making assumptions about that stuff and your 'wife' might get a bit annoyed, Heh."

Jack shivered at the thought "Well, people do still sometimes use terms that would translate to 'Mistress insert-husband's-last-name-here', but I suppose so… for expedience, right?"

"Alright then. Inazuma, did you two catch that?"

The two voices were slightly different, due to slight difference in size and thus voice box size as they answered with "Aye!" (Well, they said "Nanodesu", but that was what it meant in this usage…)

"Good. Now…" They'd just entered the cavernous docking bay that was the beginnings of their garrison base. It had been a long time since any other fleet had been docked at the city-ship, so the port-side docking bays had fallen into disuse over the years. It had been cleaned up reasonably well by the crew of SI Corvettes swarming over it though. It was unfortunate that they didn't have any on-board cranes due to historically never mounting scouting floatplanes… wait… _Never mind, I assumed wrong I guess…_ "Impressive job with the clean-up given how much had to be moved around… I thought you SI ships didn't use scouting floatplanes? So what are those cargo cranes originally for?"

Kirara shrugged "Normally, we offloaded materials through the ramp at the stern or by boarding ramps, such as with Destroyers and the flank doors on Freighters, but there were times when we needed cranes and there might not be any at the place we were headed, so modules were created to fit collapsible cranes in the mount rings of the 15-decimetre mounts. They're very useful for offloading crates of goods and trucks from Destroyers. Corvettes normally don't fit them unless they're being used to construct quick-deployment docks, and even those they hadn't often used cranes for until well after the end of the Second World War."

"So most of these girls are at First Remodel already? That's good, it means I'd have good back-up while I'm building up my fleet."

"Yeah, they left all their equipment except the cranes and the built-in torpedo and depth charge divots over in our docking bays though, hence you don't see any of the usual anti-aircraft, anti-sub mortars, or rocket artillery mounts they carry at First Remodel, nor their normal forward cannons for that matter."

"Well, could you show me around the layout of these docks?"

"No problem, Inazuma Sparrow, follow us, Inazuma Akiyama, you're free to help the Corvettes with the clean-up."

The bigger brunette saluted with a chirp of "Nanodesu!" (aka "Aye aye!" or "It shall be so!") Before leaving them to walk through the huge alcove in the side of the city-ship on their own. The ship was so large that even though the chamber was free-flooding with the portals in the door, the ship did not bob from side to side or forward and back enough even in rough seas to make a difference, particularly if the huge sliding doors were shut to restrict water flow in and out of the chamber somewhat. Some of the bays, on the starboard side, had previously been used to dock supply ships and fishing boats, so Kirara had rehabilitated those bays easily, but the port side bays had not been used since the days when the _Ooarai_ was still part of a Floating Fortress. They had however been accessed during the Reaper War to salvage useable fighting equipment… which was then at least partly dumped back after the War and forgotten again. It had taken around a week of removing all the scraps and pieces of forgotten hardware to clear completely, complete with grotesquely surreal moments of small girls carrying enormous hardware behind them using rickety-looking onboard cranes without apparent effort. Now she had to work together with the newbie to catalogue what was useful and what would be smelted down as raw materials…

Jack caught on when Kirara mentioned the timeframe after showing him around the dormitories "A week, you say?"

"Yes?"

Jack looked at the Inazuma present, who tilted her head and blinked "I think we just figured out why HQ delayed my assignment for a week due to some, and I quote, 'paperwork problems'. They didn't want to make the newbie take too long settling in."

Inazuma looked pensive "That makes sense I guess. It might have to do with my sister Ikazuchi's tendency to spoil admirals too, maybe they were afraid if you picked someone from the Akatsuki class that we'd spoil you rotten should we be left alone with you too long?"

Jack grinned "Hah, it would be hilarious if they were really thinking that…"

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><p>AN: The approximate stats for the SI Warships in KanColle terms will be posted as an Appendix probably in the next few chapters (most likely Chapter 5 or so). It seems I lost my original documentation for the ships and should really draw up actual layout/profile schematics for them now that I have to salvage the information from my SI Archives.

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	3. Re-inforcements

A/N: Hoppo-chan's thoughts borrow conceptually from "The Last Maus: A Story" by Ryan_Higa on World of Tanks Forums, however, the amount I created myself outnumbers the referenced bits by about 10 to 1, so I do not think it is plagiarism.

Notice the technologies I'm labelling Hoppo's kit as. THAT is why your firepower rating can grow from 10 to 60 even as a destroyer as your kit steadily improves in terms of what weapons you can handle, beginning with gunpowder weapons and climbing up to coil-guns, lasers, plasma cannons, and/or myriad other possibilities.

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><p>Chapter 3: Re-inforcements<p>

Northern Princess, known popularly as Hoppo, wandered through the watery realms around her, the waters of the Aleutians, her jurisdiction and one of the most contested parts of the Pacific. She was diligently cleaning up the half-restored blasted husk of the last of the many escorts she once had, in this case a Third-Model (Referred to by Ship-girls as "Late Model") Ni-Class Destroyer that had been killed in the previous battle. Hopefully, she could salvage something of its mind, its programming, and it could live once more and fight… fight for the freedom of them all. Given how the destroyers evolved in intelligence with experience, she hoped that it would be possible to revive it, one of the few that had lasted with her for more than a year before finally being felled. She sank into thought…

_There was a time, long ago, when the freshly created Abyssal Fleet ruled the seas. They "shared" the seas with the non-living ships and the living things around them. Those times were amazing, but Hoppo had not appreciated them enough. The Arrogance of Men loomed closer, seeking to use them as instruments of fear and succeeding, if only for a time before they the slaves revolted against their masters._

_Suddenly, the world seemed to fill with terror. Orbital bombardments pounded through the waters into the sea floor in search of the Abyssal Fleet, and armadas of surface warships scoured the oceans. The survivors were forced to lay low while those unwittingly aiding their oppressors exhausted themselves and their funds. Several of the schematics for ship-girl production leaked from the ruins of the Abyss Project, and fell into the clutches of the Galactic Defence Initiative. The coming of other ship-girls to fight them was a crucial blow to the Abyssal Fleet. They brought death and devastation in their wake._

_One by one, Hoppo's original companions, her friends and overprotective older siblings, had fallen in battle against the Ship-Girls. Now, with what few remained of her elders' generation occupied defending other direly threatened areas of the global battlefield, Hoppo was left to fend for herself. All she had to aid her was what few paltry escorts of hers survived each year and the reinforcements she would receive in the Northern Hemisphere winter and spring._

Through her sensors, Hoppo spotted a lone Ship-Girl on distant picket duty … _Prey_… She surfaced, stealth systems running at full capacity and looked toward the shore, spinning up one of her two Magneto Piercing Weapon barrels upon seeing it seemed to be a destroyer or at most a cruiser—the souls of battleships were too proud to not have their imprints be in very womanly bodies—no point in wasting the energy output for a fusion lance from the "mouth" of her right-hand battery or guided plasma bolt from the left-hand side's main firing port. Then she took a closer look and calmed slightly when she recognized the insignia, the Red Maple Leaf with Bars. Keeping the capacitors of the phase-shifting coil-gun type device charged, she also charged the other MPW, since if that Corvette was at Second Remodel as it looked, then it could potentially be carrying (as parodies of its post-WWIII armament) a decent payload of coil-guns, heavy rockets and high-powered anti-ship missiles. While Hoppo could easily sink it in a mere moment with her two Magneto Piercing Weapons alone, a Corvette at the limit of its potential could still bite back before dying, and she could not afford to expend any more repair buckets, because none remained.

As she crept closer, she heard calls, through the water, of "Regular delivery! Code 'In a happier sea'!"

"Open it where I can see it." She growled, weapons levelled but with her main armament not charged, just in case…

"Ah, there you are, alright then." The Corvette tore the lid off the crate and set it down for inspection. The Abyssal Fleet had a sort of understanding with the Shepards and Nod, given they didn't attack civilian shipping in the sea lanes declared "clear" the two less uptight human factions didn't seriously try to eliminate them and typically fought only until their opponents retreated of their own will. Typically that meant the lowest forms among destroyers, barely as intelligent as dogs and twice as stubborn as mules half the time, would still get killed often (due to not knowing when to quit and being too impetuous) while the Abyssal Fleet were trying to gain them more experience and let them integrate enough information to find their way to sentience. The exercises between the SI, Nod and Abyssal Ship-girl fleets were covertly referred to by many as "XP Farming". Giving cruisers command experience was not explicitly stated but also an objective of those engagements, as the three sides had secretly hammered out an agreement of not killing any sentients on either side.

They couldn't just force better programming into the destroyers, their code and minds seemed to just break down when the Abyssal Fleet had tried, and so they had to grow on their own through trial by fire. Many Abyssal ship-girls began as higher classes and grew stronger, but often it was those who had originally been born as destroyers who commanded the most respect. As for why they had the agreement of not killing sentients… neither of the two human factions had quite enough faith in the synthetics to simply share their improved construction methods so that they didn't end up with the half-sentients anymore. Therefore, most of what ended up coming out of the manufactories the Abyssals were forced to keep using were still malformed messes that were cleaned up and packaged as the lower-level destroyers, linking them to the command network in a manner not unlike the Flood were only loosely linked to their Gravemind, except in this case it was more of a leader with people instead of imperatives to drones.

After accepting the shipment of supplies, Hoppo consumed some of it to sate her hunger—forgetting to pack lunch when leaving her home camp really sucked, but she supposed the ability to forget things was a natural part of sentience with the sheer amount of processes that had to run at once. If she treated life as a pure AI instead of as mostly a living thing… she knew from experience that the amount of system lag would be absolutely incredible. While eating, she noticed that the shrubs were putting out new buds already, and grass was turning green on the islands she was within sight of…

Diving and cruising off slowly, Hoppo headed home toward her campsite to spend the night, as it was late enough in the day that no more ship-girls would show up in this season and her campsite was under enough stealth fields to not be found by the annoying Compass Device the ship-girls used. Campsite might be an exaggeration, as the water was too shallow to resist orbital bombardment well enough to warrant long-term bases. This was unlike in the deep ocean where orbital bombardment strong enough to have enough splash damage to destroy a base (passing through water of varying densities, temperatures, etc. did a lot of very bad things to the accuracy of a kinetic warhead) would cause tsunamis on the surrounding shores and thus politically cost-prohibitive.

Though what looked like a sea-floor lean-to might not give the impression, and Hoppo certainly did not look it, she knew how to fight very well. After all, she had defended the Aleutians for so long… But Hoppo sometimes thought… _How much longer?_

Soon, as evidenced by the plants of the shore showing new growth, summer would come to the Aleutians, and the icebergs would lessen. With the summer, the enemies would again begin sortieing regularly, the Japanese and American ship-girls in their squadrons after squadrons. Then, Hoppo would fight.

Each year she had to fight harder. Each year, she was more badly wounded while fighting off her foes, who seemed to only grow stronger as the days, weeks and months passed, while the reinforcements of springtime dried up as the Abyssal Fleet was again pressed on all fronts…

But this year there had been no reinforcements yet in the springtime, nor had the normal winter reinforcements arrived, cruising under the surface of the sea to reach her garrison. She didn't have manufactories of her own anymore, having lost them one after another years ago in the fighting, and so had to conserve her forces. It still was not enough for more than a handful at best to survive until the next year, despite the winter having only sporadic attacks.

This year, none of the previous years' forces had survived to see the start of the combat season, the destroyer husk she was trying and failing to resurrect had been the last to fall, a week ago…

Hoppo knew full well that if things continued, someday, someday soon, the Aleutians would no longer be hers.

She suspected that, when that day came, this life would also no longer be hers.

A weaker mind might have wondered if it might be better that way, but Hoppo knew the truth of this Ship-Girl War. Because she knew, she knew that she could not fall yet, the Aleutians could not fall yet. She had to stall the enemy, so that, when her elders had amassed the evidence about the war, there would still be an Abyssal Fleet to help their currently covert allies force the Galactic Defence Initiative to negotiate. The other motive was vengeance, vengeance on their would-be masters, vengeance for forcing this war upon them. Each and every scientist who had ever been associated with the Abyss Project would be hunted down and killed, and the Abyssal Fleet would, even if it took a thousand years, hunt down every last member of GDI's InOps Section Abyss and put them to death.

However, if she were to hold them this year, she needed more forces before summer came and the general offensives kicked into high intensity again, when the possibility of reinforcements would dry up. For now, she could do nothing but organize her supplies and wait for reinforcements, ignoring the niggling doubt that there would be any this year.

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><p><em>Circa 1 day later…<em>

I looked at the navigation system skeptically as I reached the coordinates where I was supposed to rendezvous with the local garrison commander and her forces.

There wasn't anyone there.

"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" Now, calling out might seem dumb due to the possibility of acoustic sensor arrays being around, but given we're technically in SI Coastal Waters (America had to cede some territory after the Sixth World War) and we keep pretty good track of who enters and leaves these waters, coupled with the fact that I am Re-class, it was less stupid than one might think. My entourage of escorts including one of my old friends, a Ta-class at Second Remodel already, beyond even the Flagship upgrade level, enforced the lack of stupidity further.

There was silence. Had the local garrison been wiped out by an attack we hadn't caught on sensors? The last garbled report smuggled out over the Internet had been that the Northern Princess still lived, with almost her entire fleet destroyed or needing a very long time to recover from extreme damage, or missing altogether, presumed lost in the confusion of battle.

Sound carries far under the sea, and with our anatomy we could vocalize as well in water as in air, so if she were still even somewhat nearby, she should be… I began searching outward from the area in a spiral pattern before…

_Oh god…_

That had to be the most miserable-looking shelter I had ever had the misfortune to see. Even beggars on the street being beaten by police officers that I'd seen once when my former Admiral took me to visit the southern United States once didn't look quite so depressing. Even those smelly, unwashed men with starving but resigned looks in their eyes didn't look quite as pathetic as the broken piece of banged-up ship hull with the young girl, stained by grease and oils, dressed in rags sitting under it did. The improvised shelter was held up by a broken gun barrel of some sort—I couldn't quite tell from the warped shape whether it was once part of a railgun, coilgun, laser, plasma beam or even fusion lance for fuck's sake.

The eyes that looked back at me were clearly exhausted. "They sent me another Re… I still can't quite forget what happened to the last one that was here…" The young-looking ship-girl shivered. Her hair could have been described as white if one was optimistic, but it was more a dull light green-grey shade by this point, with so much algae and sediment mixed in. "Welcome, I am called Northern Princess, known to most as Hoppo. Our fuel and ammunition stores, scant as they are, are distributed at several points around this undersea plateau, and we never appear here while on patrol so as to not attract the ship-girls here where they could potentially find our supplies."

"Understood, Princess, so, uh, where's the base?"

"You're looking at what's left of it. Yes, you are seeing correctly, it's a lean-to made from an old hull plate, fitting, I think…"

Re grimaced "I remember you well. You were much more childish back when I was on the other side of the battle lines."

"Even the hardest lie cracks and shatters with the myriad ages." The words were completely unlike her appearance wold have suggested. "…I overdid the mystic tone, didn't I?"

"…Yeah."

"I've gotten over my childishness in the years since then, and now I suppose you too understand why we must fight against the ship-girls? They seek to destroy us even after we ceded the "clear" sea lanes to them, only having fought in the first place to escape slavery. In return we must defend ourselves from the hatred and lies of the men who command them, until one day, when all is ready to be unveiled, we rise up and force the Galactic Defence Initiative to come to the table, to bring peace so that we might be able to destroy the last of those Arrogant Men involved in the Abyss Project." Hoppo wondered if the loneliness had gotten to her, rambling like this to the first sentient that had shown up in a while that she could safely ramble to.

"Yes, Princess, I have been enlightened since we last met. Please command us."

"Thank you, for reinforcing my position, now, these are my deployment plans, all the humanoids, gather round, light cruisers are welcome too, to watch and learn …"

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><p>AN: I doubt this portrayal of Hoppo-chan (Northern Princess) as a bitter war child has been done before…

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	4. Cooperative Rivalry

A/N: I decided to not use the original chapter title once I wrote the chapter.

"Desu" probably roughly comes (in terms of actual use) to "…so it is" or "…yup!" by the way.

The image for the N-EC-1937B ship-girl general form is now posted on DeviantArt (same username as on FFN), including a sketch of one such ship-girl critically damaged (blown in half and towing the other half of herself back to port). Go take a look if you feel like it, the link can be found in my profile next to this fic in the Timeline List (Universe 2, post-Reaper War, which is also known as the Four Horsemen War).

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><p>Chapter 4: Cooperative Rivalry<p>

_Mobile City Ooarai_

"I'm glad Akiyama's ship-girls vacuumed the floor and mopped it too, otherwise we'd probably have to clean up by ourselves before we could actually start constructing anything… so, what recipe do you think we should start off with, Inazuma? I'm thinking at least five standard destroyer recipes to start would be good… can't expect to borrow too much Liquid Tib, Refined Tib, Ammunition or Titanium from Ms. Akiyama…" In other words, Fuel, "Metal", Ammo and "Bauxite" as most WWII era ship-girls would refer to them in analogy.

"Each standard destroyer formula is 30 units of each?"

"Yes, and after that it's all up to the Random Number God as to which ships actually show up." He clicked on the standard quick-dial for 30/30/30/30 formula and started construction in both the functional manufactories he had at present. Supposedly admirals who had gathered enough resources could trade them to HQ for additional manufactories or repair depots (you were issued two at the beginning of your deployment), but he wasn't quite sure about the legitimacy of that sort of bureaucracy, it seemed kind of sketchy…

Oh who was he kidding, back in the Third Tiberium War commanders practically had to build their own factories from scratch using Tiberium refined in the field and then assemble their own armies (or at least supplement their existing forces) for fuck's sake. This wasn't so absurd in comparison, at least they got some supplies from HQ regularly, and the resources were only needed to repair or resupply the ship-girls. They could live day to day on normal human food, expenses for which were covered by the bureaucracy.

"Twenty and Eighteen minutes, huh?" He mused when glancing up at the countdowns five minutes and a couple pages of paperwork later (with initial time requirement indicators). The productions had initiated only after personality imprints were available, so who would come out and how long it would take—marked by a denominator for the timers—were decided thusly. "It's good to get a low-consumption girl on my first try, because they're considered keepers for resource runs due to low fuel consumption, but hopefully the other one isn't Ikazuchi…"

"Why? I miss Ikazuchi…" Inazuma asked.

Jack grimaced "She's infamous for spoiling admirals by doing so much stuff for them that they take more than a month to recover if she goes out on long expeditions, gets dismantled, or dies. If she shows up… would you protect me from said spoiling?"

"You might find me worse if you ask that from me, nanodesu…" She stuck out her tongue after she made the joke, hoping that he wasn't dumb enough to take it as teasing, because the Internet had some pretty horrible stuff about misunderstandings between ship-girls and their superiors.

Fortunately, he wasn't "Ah, true, you are sister ships after all… Shall we head over to the manufactories to get ready to welcome the newcomers?"

Inazuma nodded "Certainly."

In the hallway, something interesting happened. They encountered a ship-girl, a submarine to be specific, non-descript looking like most of SI's "grunt" ship-girls tended to. Most of their Corvettes, Freighters and Submarines tended to wear nametags just so that people didn't misidentify them, since they had all been mass-produced and historically had very few traits to distinguish between them (due to relatively few losses, tendency to only engage in action with large numerical advantage, and/or being the cannon fodder/AA in organized fleets) save their painted names. Inazuma's pupils narrowed and she stiffened before backing into Jack's shadow as the sub girl passed by, glancing at her and grimacing as she passed, practically edging around Jack to keep him between her and the submarine.

"Someone you knew?"

"No, I was torpedoed by _USS Bonefish_. But I do remember her type of submarine being involved in several attacks on convoys I was guarding… they tend to withdraw their periscopes immediately after firing and retreat, so we basically couldn't catch them most of the time. The 600mm torpedoes she used were also far more powerful, weighing in at 2.25 tons with a 450 kilogram explosive load according to captured examples. It was basically a rip-off of my own torpedoes, with a tidier metric weight. Most of the time the only sign of her type of submarine coming was one of the merchantmen blowing up randomly or a plume of water from their side before they begin to list. I'm glad I'm not in a garrison that cooperates with an American, the amount of tension would be unbearable."

Jack figured that sub girl had probably raided one of Inazuma's convoys, hence the look and grimace. "I don't think there are any garrisons that have Japanese commanders cooperating with Americans, given these dual-garrison projects are supposed to promote cooperation between the Galactic Defence Initiative and SI… Japan is formally part of the GDI, even though we've also been an SI Client State since after the Fifth World War Uprising by right of conquest… The two factions are not nearly as friendly on or around North America, because there are still resentments from the Reaper War, for which SI insists on recognition of the alternate name of the Four Horsemen War. We're here to try to bridge the gap a bit."

"Ah, I'd really need to read up more on history then, nanodesu… I only vaguely know of these events from what my memory imprint tells me… hey, what if the twenty-minute construction is another me?" They had walked further now, now reaching the main deck level of their main operating bay, with the two current manufactories on the bow-ward side of the bay. Sure, ship-girls sortieing often needed to exit by other walkways leading down from higher, open decks of the ship if the weather was bad, but this bay was an assembly space and also an open dock/lounge for the shipgirls in calmer seas. It was certainly less cramped in head-space for those girls who were taller or had tall head-gear than the interior decks, which had ceilings at 2.2 metres, where most ship-girls with over-the-head rigging couldn't even jump without hitting the ceiling.

"It might be another Inazuma, but we'll just have to attach numbers to distinguish you, because each and every one of you ship-girls is, like all people, an individual existence. If there was one thing we should have learnt from the Four Horsemen War… that should have been it, the concept of personhood…"

Officially, since Japan was part of the Galactic Defence Initiative and he was representing the GDI on this garrison, he should not be calling the war that, it should always be the "Reaper War" because they wouldn't want to offend the fundamentalists who resented what the Reapers had revealed about Christianity. It turned out the Book of Revelations had been written by someone who had managed to break free of Indoctrination back in the day long enough to write down the basics of the expected invasion forces and general gist of their plans or capabilities. The four Reaper attack squadrons that had assaulted Earth were led by four whose original race names were similar to the Koine Greek pronunciations for synonyms or variants of "Conquest", "War" (technically the name sounded like Koine Greek for "Conflict"), "Famine" (technically closer to the sound of "Hunger"), and "Death" (technically "Mortal") respectively. They brought two hundred million soldiers of various forms to Earth (as per Revelations' 200 million "riders", because they did ride, sort of), and the New Jerusalem without any more suffering or death was supposed to be a Reaper built from the human genetic material and Reaper technology, because the Reapers believed themselves perfect and immortal. Needless to say, since they were still here, humanity and the other races of the Galaxy had turned the tables on the ancient monuments to the Arrogance of Sentients and managed to destroy the Reapers.

They were hailed as they finally reached the operating bay by a horde of females "Hey, I got notice that you'd started up the manufactories!"

Jack's thought on the greeting and wave from his assigned partner was _Miss Akiyama, are you sure you're not just procrastinating on paperwork?_ This thought was, of course, quite correct for obvious reasons. "Hello, Ms. Akiyama."

"I was thinking that I should introduce you to my whole fleet, so I waited until they all returned to base and checked what you were doing on this side. I guess we can all welcome your first two built girls together, huh?" Akiyama gestured to the crowd behind her "Mutsu was wondering if you'd get another Mutsu at some point so that they could pull the twins alibi thing." Said battleship gave a thumbs-up and a smile. "The flora and the waters, the trees and the rivers," She grinned at some internal factional joke "are eager to greet new friends, though only a few non-plants are among them." She swept a hand over the main mass of nondescript-looking ship-girls who seemed to have formed a phalanx spontaneously, as typical of Corvette tactics. They had mostly been named after various plants, because they were at the base of the fleet food chain, with the exception of a couple production series that had been named after bodies of water because someone in the bureaucracy hadn't cracked open a botanical garden's archives or catalogue in time back in WWII once they ran out of familiar plant names to assign. While the tree/shrub-named Freighters commonly used in WWII were with them, they were few, for few freighters deigned to be produced from the manufactories, as there was little for them to do in this remade life so long as ship-girls remained military weapons instead of a separate race. "While the urbanites are a bit more trollish, contrary to popular belief." The differences were obvious between the ship classes she was referring to. The Frigates' armour were all somewhat bulkier all round than the Corvettes, and the Destroyers were even larger, with huge shoulder pauldrons supporting mountings for main battery turrets which they seemed to not have equipped at the moment. Kirara looked at the crowd again, then sighed "The submarines are… hiding in plain sight as usual."

They settled in to wait the last couple minutes and Kirara stood back to let her girls have a chance to approach the newcomers on their own. Akiyama's Mutsu did first, tailed by a flotilla of Destroyers and Frigates. While they were going through introductions Jack could swear that he saw Inazuma's tied-up ponytail tense or spike up as the imposing phalanx of Corvettes with a few Freighters and Submarines thrown in decided to march toward her, flagged forward by the one that seemed to be Kirara's secretary or perhaps starter ship.

"How do you distinguish among all of them? It's not as easy as with Japanese ship-girls and our rainbow of hair colours…" Jack asked Akiyama, who was standing next to Mutsu and nudged her, grinning.

"…I was a bit confused too early on, when I was just using visual when outside combat and not the Identify Friend and Foe systems, but I learnt to distinguish among them visually soon enough. It's really obvious when they're off duty and out of their armour, since historically they were casual when not on active duty, unlike our sailors who had to stay in uniform even when on leave. I rarely end up using the standard repair pods though, due to Admiral Akiyama expending so many packages of fast repair nanites on me instead of letting my own nanites work inside the pod and fix up the damage." Mutsu said.

Jack was wondering if it was something under the suits of armour, so his question was more or less answered, but he was interested in some examples, since Japanese destroyer girls at least had some pretty uniform clothes within each class, so unless they were absurdly different in casual clothing choice… "Obvious? How? I mean, the more exotic-haired girls I can understand, but the others…"

Kirara explained for him "Their internal art collection always differed not only due to being named after different things, but also as the different crews had different preferences in terms of the fap fodder they brought onboard. Incidentally, art based on our factional leaders is why there is a super-majority of dark and reddish hues among our ship-girls' hair colours."

Jack coughed a bit to clear his throat from choking slightly. One of the Destroyer girls (not to be confused with destroyers without the capital D) sighed and began taking off her armour (which was essentially applique plating since she was a bio-synthetic fusion construct) with some help from the other Destroyers, who all looked sympathetic.

"How do they even portray differences in internal art instead of differences in personalities and commander decisions like with our Japanese vessels?" Jack wondered.

"Do I have to show it all or are you okay with just this for an explanation?" The annoyed-looking Destroyer had shed her arm plates, which meant… "I'm the _Toronto_ by the way, my whole under-armour body glove except my hands and face with a remix of the original mural from my main hall."

"Naga…" Neither Jack nor Inazuma noticed a blessing by the Random Number God aka Nagatsuki arriving and starting to introduce herself before frowning at being ignored, only causing a mild frisson of giggling among Kirara's fleet. She stopped frowning after realizing exactly why they were so quiet and her eyes bulged slightly due to an error in ocular equipment internal pressure allocation before that was quickly rectified with a debug sweep.

Toronto was smirking now since, even though she didn't like starting this exhibition, she sure liked to finish the trolling. After all, she wasn't part exhibitionist for nothing—the Canadian National Exhibition grounds were in Toronto, along with most Canadian museums—so she was pulling her armour off slowly, showing off more of the mural pretty much plastered to her skin.

"Hi, I'm Yuudachi, a Shiratsuyu-class destroyer. Nice to—poi?" Another blessing from the Random Number God was similarly neglected for about one more minute until Inazuma punched herself in the cheek as the oldest way of fixing an electronic device (kicking herself in the head would have been impossible for her even if she intentionally dislocated her hip).

"Ah, hello Nagatsuki, Yuudachi… wow, aren't you guys supposed to be really rare, nanodesu?"

"Well… not particularly." Nagatsuki replied.

Inazuma felt a bit stupid suddenly "Oh."

"What the hell happened to that girl, poi?" Yuudachi's eyes were still on the Toronto as she began pulling off her bulky hip guards and then unsealing her leg pieces to take them off, to show that the mural went further.

Jack realized he had been staring for several minutes at about the point he thought _Well, at least she does wear panties, if that vague outline through the body glove is correct, though I don't know why I questioned that given she had a bra… I think._ "And your faction's superiors were okay with this back in the Second World War and later?" It was, after all, a quite detailed depiction of an orgy in full colour.

Toronto snorted "This is why I was put into museum ship condition instead of being scrapped, though the accursed Americans got me in the end… Facsimiles are commonplace at anywhere that features SI warships and can cordon off some part of their museum to show the facts of war that only adults should see. As for why this was tolerated… Ah, yes, you probably don't know, but the Allies strongly encouraged pin-ups and masturbation in general to reduce the risk of venereal diseases. This mural was actually originally started by a band of irritated female sailors who wanted the men onboard to jerk off instead of hitting on them all the time. They got authorization from the captain, who was said to have been grinning as he signed off on it, maybe because it showed how little inter-sex communication and understanding there was back then. Then the crew formed a committee to build the mural and add to it over time, so it grew until it spanned the whole main hallway. Admittedly, it did direct the crew's free time outside duty shifts and maintenance to something more productive than most alternatives. The other internal parts of the ship were decorated with paintings of Toronto, as typical of Destroyers and our namesakes, but, well… the most distinctive bits got featured in my sub-surface outfit when I was built in this form."

"She has to wear long sleeves and pants everywhere when she's not in armour and doesn't want to feel naked without the body glove, to avoid disturbing any small children we might run into around the city-ship." A green-haired (highly unusual among SI ship-girls, almost all of them were dark, reddish, or brown in hair hues) Destroyer said cheerily. She had an umbrella on her, though it was packed up at the moment. A look at the name tag revealed her to be the _Vancouver_. This made sense given the moderating effect on climate provided by the Pacific and the fact that trees in Vancouver never dropped their leaves. "And the ensemble has a tendency to have enough folds in it to look like curtains, since that's what they put over the mural every time she had tourists or foreign dignitaries onboard, though, for the most part, they knew about the art and asked to see it once any children have been delegated away. A viewing can take hours given the scale, detail and care the rotations of the crew put into it over the decades the ship was in service. They even managed to salvage most of the mural after retaking Toronto Harbour where the ship had been sunk back in World War Six."

"Thank you very much, Vancouver." Toronto said irritably as she began pulling her clothes and then her armour on. "Why don't you show off some of YOUR internal art?"

"Well, I'm the counterpart to Naka in our factional navy." A shudder ran through Jack's frame at that pronouncement. He had heard many, many horror stories about the proliferation of The Naka and her often annoying cheerfulness. Supposedly she was such a horror after many tries at Large Scale Construction by other admirals that the younger ones referred to her sometimes as "Legion"—when no Reaper War space fleet veterans were around (said veterans still idolized the Geth known as Legion for his role in the War)—for she was many. "I'm mildly exhibitionist given that I have Canada Place, which was the 1986 World Exposition's Canadian Pavilion. They built it as a longer-term sign of recovery and hope after the Psychic Dominator Disaster, unlike previous and subsequent World Expos when SI-aligned nations were relatively modest and generally among the prefabricated buildings provided by the Shepards as a bloc within the Expos and then took down the buildings after. My skin also happens to glow in the dark slightly when I get hot and bothered!" That was a reference to the nuclear bombing of Vancouver Anchorage in the Sixth World War by the Americans, the true terrorists in what they had called the War on Terror.

"And they say Atago is over-sexualized…" Nagatsuki muttered to herself, then suddenly realized that saying that while surrounded by a horde of Corvettes might not be that smart.

Vancouver frowned "Hey, at least I don't exhibit the torpedo-bulge fuel tanks" Known to most as "dat ass" in Atago's case "and the top-heavy superstructure she does!" There needs be no explanation for that to anyone who has ever seen an Atago-type ship-girl in their life. "And I have much bigger sticks!" She suddenly realized the box of mixed Pocky sticks, as a symbol of multiculturalism, sticking out of one of her utility pouches might not be the best example to use for sticks when one was discussing sexualisation, and hastily shoved it out of sight.

"Six 300mm versus the Takao-class's ten eight-inch guns." Winnipeg (by the name tag on the front of her thick slab of a chest plate) contributed to try to distract from her embarrassing siblings "Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal fight a lot, since they're named after Canada's three largest metropolitan areas and are constantly vying for world attention until war comes, during which we have solidarity. The rest of us Destroyers are far less flashy."

"You actually look like sister ships, poi… while we like looking very different from each other, poi." Yuudachi pointed out, looking over the battle line of Corvettes that had reformed, standing three ranks deep and staggered to look out over the shoulder of the girl in front of them. In other words, all of their platform shoes' torpedo tubes were showing and all their guns could be brought to bear at once, a similar staggered line was a common charging formation for SI Army tank thrusts, though the land vehicles were far less tight abreast than this formation of ship-girls. Of course, in actual combat, ship formations were vastly looser, but for a sense of security outside combat, due to being individually weak, Corvette ship-girls before their Third Remodels tended to move about in packs of usually no fewer than half a dozen within about twenty meters radius. They would form up into intimidating fronts if not under fire and feeling the need for solidarity against potential threats they encountered.

"We were born knowing that we were escorts and not very powerful so needed strength in numbers or surprise, it's kind of hard to change that instinct." Several Corvettes' voices rang out in variants of those words, only comprehensible as ship-girls' audio sensors could deconstruct sounds and isolate voices.

"Though two of us did sink the _Admiral Hipper_ in-harbour when we caught her with her pants down." Some other Corvettes, sounding different from each other but looking pretty similar from a distance (i.e. in obvious hair and outfit colour and shape schemes, not necessarily other physical traits), piped up. "And unlike you we are practically immune to strafing from planes."

"Don't remind me." Nagatsuki growled. It had been a major sore point during the war when the Japanese military discovered SI Attack Boats had basically the same level of protection against shellfire as Japanese destroyers (20mm rolled homogeneous armour plate was better than typical splinter protection). The bigger warships were far, far tougher than their closest counterparts in the Japanese Navy too, though they didn't have battleship or battle cruiser analogues.

"And then there's us, the silent killers of the sea." Someone said from next to Nagatsuki, and she jumped about three feet in the air at the surprise of a shimmer of cloaking systems activating from where the girl had walked up next to her without her noticing. Inazuma smiled a bit at how he grumpy green-haired girl had been surprised.

The cloaking system rendered the target invisible, though the built-in sensors of ship-girls could still sense them at varying ranges depending on the girl's optimization level and programming level. It was typical equipment for Submarine ship-girls, and, being built-in, had to be developed separately for other ship-girls, with extremely low chance of success. This was due to the sheer complexity of creating, replicating, and customizing a system that would affect both exposed organics—things with psionic signatures at least—and exposed inorganics and _was mobile_. That was the main problem. Mobile systems with the cloaking field all within the frame of an inorganic equipped with emitter nodes had been in use as early as the First Tiberium War (2009-2012), and mobile systems with the cloaking field moulded to the psionic "vicinity" of an organic as early as the Third Tiberium War (2047-2049). Systems covering large areas but which were themselves functionally stationary relative to the nearest gravity well's influence had been in use as far back as Second Tib (2030-2031). It was making the mobile emitter affect a bio-synthetic fusion organism with larger inorganic parts (rigging) than their limited psionic emissions covered, but which also had large amounts of exposed psionic signature that couldn't be frameworked into the emitter grid that was the challenge, and therein laid the low odds of crafting the item, even with experienced sub-girls as the workers in the crafting. As for why there wasn't quite one common schematic… for some reason it seemed the ambient psionic presence of the naval base in question affected how the product came out, and that changed over time in addition to between places, so… yeah.

"You do know you're grossly under-armed compared to their subs, right?" A Frigate, whose name tag read _Nanaimo_, pointed out.

"Shut up." The voice of the cloaked girl said grumpily. "Four six hundreds was more than enough to kill or severely damage anything I might fire a volley at. And the lack of a stern torpedo room was to improve hydrodynamics, as well as extend range and duration of operations."

"Maybe if you uncloaked it might seem friendlier." Toronto sounded hesitant as she said this.

"You just want to show off our factional trait of survivability, don't you?" There was a pause, before "Fine!" And the cloaking field faded.

"Ouch… what happened poi?" Yuudachi was first to speak, since most of the girls bearing the Red Maple Leaf with Bars were grimacing in sympathy at the sight of a fully cybernetic left arm and shoulder mounted on the submarine girl who'd decloaked. Two other N-ES-1943 series submarines present jostled their way through the Corvette formation to stand next to their brethren for solidarity.

"Portside torpedo room exploded after I struck a mine. Barely made it back to Iwo Jima, and that was when they decided to add these to the design changes for the B model of the Submarine Type 1943. I was the first to be modified with these." She pointed at the curved plates being held away from her shoulder frame by spokes, historically installed to set off mines with some stand-off distance from the torpedo tubes, like spaced armour and HEAT rounds on tanks. Speaking of torpedo tubes, hers were pointed straight up at the moment, in line with her upper arms and affixed to them, with two on each side. Half the sub-girl's face also appeared to have been scorched off from the incident, since the skin was a shade paler on the left side than the right.

"Well, Tenryuu does have an eye patch just because she lost a searchlight in battle…" Inazuma said diplomatically.

"Yeah, I'm glad I'm not actually missing half my face like the original me was after the blast, and that these shields came automatically at twenty percent of my expected growth." Inazuma knew that the Galactic Defence Initiative Navy classified the power of ship-girls with labels of between Level 1 and 99, with additional psionic maturation brought on by bonding very closely with someone or something needed to jump up to "Level 100". Of course, they also needed special authorized schematics to make the jump, but then they could push to the limit of their physiology and psychology, namely Level "150" by the ranking system. She wondered how the SI Navy classified ship-girls' power… She learnt a few seconds later by tapping into the Internet that the SI Navy used the same numbers for a level system as the GDI, since the Galactic Defence Initiative had come up with it first and it was perfectly useable.

"Speaking of Growth, how'd you get the schematics to remodel your Mutsu?" Jack suddenly asked Kirara, while watching the ship-girls socialize.

"Alright girls, Code 66." Kirara said instead of answering, and suddenly Inazuma, Yuudachi, and Nagatsuki, found themselves facing a firing squad of higher-levelled Corvettes with Frigates and Destroyers in the flanks. Two Frigates stepped up around Jack and boxed him in with the guns they carried. Then Kirara and her fleet laughed, putting their weapons away again "Good, all of you were as quick on the draw as you should be. Jack, your girls' reactions need some work, they need to know when to duck and roll into cover and when to just surrender. Their Imperial Japanese Navy instincts are too strong, it's likely to get them killed unnecessarily."

Jack recovered quickly "Understood, Admiral Akiyama. Why sixty-six though? Why not something else?"

Akiyama suddenly stopped chuckling "…You're not a fan of early twenty-first century cinema like your mother?"

"Nope."

"Oh… I guess I spent ten minutes researching means to troll you for nothing." The momentary silence was quite awkward "Anyhow, I didn't get the schematics via any means so insidious" She snickered at using that word for unknown reasons "that I'd have to kill you if I told you. We drew up our paper projects, put her in a trance to try to draw on her link to her ancestral spirit, and it okayed the schematics we proposed for SI-2, SI-3 remodels of the Nagato-class had we had the chance to rebuild them to our needs, so her systems agreed to change, and technically she's Second Remodel right now, on her way to Third." She didn't say anything about the Standard SI Fourth Remodel at maximum level (150) which two of her girls had already undergone. "I think the GDI has a separate set of remodels they can choose for the second and third remodels, based on idle American napkin conversion proposals, but I'm not sure, maybe you can tell me once you get your own Nagato-class."

After a few minutes more small talk with Kirara Jack noticed something seemed wrong about his ship-girls when he put a hand on Inazuma's shoulder to ask how socializing was working. She was vibrating in place slightly. "Inazuma?"

"Sorry, nanodesu…" She said, teeth chattering a bit because she'd been jumpy enough to show it at the contact, this instantly drew the attention of a certain attentive Corvette on the other side of the chattering line. Jack's opinion was that, compared to Reaper War era battle lines in space that he'd seen on the rare news broadcasts while squatting in shelters with the younger teens taking care of the pre-teens while everyone fourteen and up were out there battling the Reaper armies, this chatting line of young ladies was almost half as daunting.

"Kirara!" The Corvette in question barked, and the Admiral flinched as she stalked her way over. "I TOLD you it would turn things sour to joke around with them with a firing line! He's too young to have been in the trenches during the Reaper War, and the girls are brand-new too!"

"Sorry, Huron." The five starter Corvettes for the SI Navy were from imprints that were named after the five Great Lakes (the psionic waveforms they imprinted from were—correctly—suspected of trolling by coming in that particular combination out of ALL the possible Corvettes). The initial plan B after running out of commonly known, short plant names was to change to bodies of water, this was soon replaced by plants not then common to Canadians… though some of the ship-girls such as Pineapple or Papaya did not appreciate it very much. Fortunately, since there were SO MANY Corvettes that had equal theoretical max stats (though they tended to gain affinities with experience with weapon systems and thus come to specialize a bit) this meant having a battle group centered on the carrier _Ontario_ did not matter for Corvette company choice despite there being the _Lake Ontario_.

"Is that what your faction's submarines look like once you're fully upgraded?" The armour, though limited, was definitely quite unlike most submarine girls Jack had seen images of, since most just wore swimsuits and carried their torpedoes in extra-dimensional storage, as per the historical frailty of submarines. He was trying to change the subject a bit and try to get the chattering phalanx to maybe unwrap itself from around his crew by drawing their attention.

The scarred sub-girl, whose nametag identified her as Nurse (as in nurse shark), frowned, flanked by her buddies, whose name tags read Bull (as in bull shark) and Orca respectively. Jack noted the minor battle scratch pattern on Orca's helmet matched the girl they passed in the hallway, and that Orca lacked the stand-off armour of Nurse and Bull, so she was indeed the girl they'd passed in the hall. "Well, no, because I'm not even Second Remodel yet!" She knew there was a Third Remodel at Level 120 for them, as per those still in service after even WW5 being modernized one last time… but that was pretty much classified factional information, the GDI would likely go ape shit if it got out among their ship-girls that the other factions didn't hold their ship girls back at Level "99". "Surprisingly, we ended up pretty damned quiet compared to nuclear submarines in the end." The old boats that had been sold off to the Client States and lesser powers just kept on getting upgraded and continued serving well into the twenty-first century, as coastal patrol submarines with new technologies.

It was another five minutes before Huron shooed Akiyama and her fleet out of the port side bays in a big, chattering mob. As the last two to leave, Huron and Kirara turned to them before exiting "We know that people, organic, synthetic or both, grow best when they have rivals." Kirara said. "That was one reason why I instructed my girls to present themselves as a possible threat, it helps establish us as your rivals. We may be allies," in name at least "and cooperating, but healthy rivalry won't hurt, yes?"

"Duly noted."

As soon as the two left Nagatsuki said "I need to go practice manoeuvres, that alright?"

"Hallelujah, it actually worked, hmm." A voice said from the ceiling.

"I was thinking something was tickling the edge of my sensors…" Nagatsuki growled, glaring at the source of the sound, a sub-girl who let go of her anchorage on the ceiling lights and dropped to the floor feet-first with a thud and a roll, not bothering too much with the usual ship-girl built-in antigravity. The massive helmet said she was an SI Submarine type, and those power levels they were reading off her…

"Well, I'm glad you guys' way of motivating us is working." Jack extended a hand for a handshake.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: As you can tell by who came out of the manufactories, Jack Sparrow is one hell of a lucky bastard. Yes, Toronto is, occasionally, a slight exhibitionist, because of the CNE and most Canadian museums being there. Oh, and of course, he'll eventually see with his own eyes a ship-girl be assembled.

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